Abstract
The claim that profound structural transformations in the external environment are undermining the principle of state sovereignty has been advanced by many foreign policy analysts from quite different theoretical traditions, and the specific instance of the constraint of membership of international organisations on national foreign policy decision-makers constitutes one aspect of the controversy about the continuing importance of the state and the distinctiveness of foreign policy, the management of ‘interdependence', as well as the ideas and values which transcend governments, and governmental control. The broad concept of ‘dependence' and ‘constraint' in foreign policy decision-making has thus stimulated a great deal of scholarly controversy;
